Uber is the largest taxi company, yet it owns no vehicles. Facebook is the most popular media owner, yet it doesn’t create content.
AirBnB is the largest accommodation provider, yet it doesn’t own any real estate. And Alibaba is the most valuable retailer, yet it doesn’t have any inventory.
The hype around technological advances is usually centred on physical change; super-fast processors, increased bandwidth, online collaboration tools, drones, 3D printing, higher levels of automation, artificial intelligence and so on.
What is often overlooked, however, is how advances in technology create entirely new ways of looking at business.
It changes the kinds of businesses that can be created and it provides new challenges and opportunities in how businesses must interact with their customers.
From the 6 to 8 January, the Association for Business Communication (ABC) Conference will be hosted in Cape Town – its first edition in Africa.
The goal of the conference is to bring together academics and working practitioners to discuss how digital communication is changing business and how companies and institutions need to adapt.
‘Human voice’
While not all presenters have been confirmed and applications are still open for the submission of abstracts, there are a number of interesting names and topics appearing on the schedule.
Dutch-based Rob le Pair will be talking on the importance of using a ‘human voice’ in digital communication. The proliferation of social media platforms, such as Twitter and Facebook, have opened up new channels for consumer complaints and the spread or impact of these is often difficult to control.
Customers now drive the companies’ brand messaging rather than the companies themselves.
Le Pair has investigated the relationship between negative word-of-mouth messaging and the reaction of companies over a digital space and has found that the negative impact of online complaints can be reduced by using subtle tools to emphasise the human side of communication.
People want to feel that their voice is being heard and that they are being spoken to as individuals.
JetBlue – a low-cost airline in the US – uses keyword searches to pick up whenever customers are talking about their brand, even when customers don’t use @mention techniques to solicit a response from the company.
Nike has over 4 million followers on Twitter and its policy is to never leave a message unanswered for more than a few minutes.
Pertinent discussion
Ashley Hall from Austin, Texas will be addressing delegates at the ABC conference on how to protect the company’s image in the age of digital complaining, while Carel van Wijk from Tilburg University in The Netherlands will talk on how to restructure Twitter as a help desk.
South Africa’s own George Mazarakis (the executive producer of Carte Blanche and creator of the Oscar Pistorius Trial Channel) and Bruce Cameron (the founding editor of Personal Finance) will join the panel – chaired by Judge Dennis Davis of the Western Cape High Court – to bring local context to the discussion around digital business communication.
It is a pertinent discussion to have. The number of smartphone users in South Africa grew 27.1 percent last year – the eleventh fastest growth rate in the world.
This uptake of personal internet access not only gives customers more access to change the message around company branding, but it also gives companies new access to create a conversation with their customers – if they choose to do so.
Conversation in a digital space is becoming increasingly important but brands will have to be careful how they interact with their customers.
Technology is changing the medium for communication but along with that comes a change in the style of conversation needed.
* Pierre Heistein is the convener of UCT’s Applied Economics for Smart Decision Making course. Follow him on Twitter @PierreHeistein
Business Report